The Psychology Book (25 page)

innate response.

Konrad Lorenz 77 ■ B.F. Skinner 78–85

76

LEARNING

IS JUST NOT

POSSIBLE

KARL LASHLEY (1890–1958)

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

A
merican physiologist- mazes as the basis of a learning

turned-psychologist Karl

experiment. First, the rats learned

Lashley was interested in

to find their way through the maze

what happens physically in the

to reach a food reward. Then,

Neuropsychology

brain during the learning process.

Lashley performed surgery on them

BEFORE

Pavlov and other behaviorists had

to remove specific but different

suggested that conditioning causes

parts of the cerebral cortex from

1861
French anatomist Paul

chemical or electrical changes in

each one. After this, the rats were

Broca locates the area of the

the brain, and Lashley wanted to

replaced in the maze to test their

brain responsible for speech.

pinpoint exactly what these were.

memory and learning abilities.

1880s
Spanish pathologist

In particular, Lashley wanted to

and neuroscientist Santiago

locate the memory trace, or

No place for memory

Ramón y Cajal develops the

“engram,” the specific place in the

What Lashley found was that no

theory that the body’s nervous

brain responsible for memory. Like

matter which part of the brain he

system is made up of cells,

many behaviorists, he used rats in

removed, the rats’ memory of the

which German anatomist

task remained. Their learning and

Heinrich Waldeyer-Hartz later

retention of new tasks was impaired,

calls “neurons.”

but the amount of impairment

depended on the extent, not the

AFTER

location, of the damage. He came

1949
Donald Hebb describes

to the conclusion that the memory

the formation of cell assemblies

There is no great excess of

trace is not localized in a particular

and phase sequences in the

cells which can be reserved as place, but distributed evenly

process of associative learning.

the seat of special memories.

throughout the cerebral cortex; each

Karl Lashley

part of the brain is therefore equally

From 1980
Modern brain-

important, or equipotential. Decades

imaging techniques such as

later, he said that his experiment

CT, fMRI (functional magnetic

had led him to “sometimes feel…

resonance imaging) and PET

that the necessary conclusion is

(positron emission tomography)

that learning is just not possible.” ■

scanning allow neuroscientists

to map specific brain functions.

See also:
John B. Watson 66–71 ■ Donald Hebb 163 ■ George Armitage Miller 168–73 ■ Daniel Schacter 208–09 ■ Roger Brown 237

BEHAVIORISM 77

IMPRINTING

CANNOT BE

FORGOTTEN!

KONRAD LORENZ (1903–1989)

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

T
he Austrian zoologist and Lorenz went on to observe many

doctor Konrad Lorenz was

other stage-linked, instinctive

one of the founding fathers

behaviors, such as courtship

of ethology—the comparative study

behavior, and described them

Ethology

of animal behavior in the natural

as ”fixed-action patterns.” These

BEFORE

environment. He began his work

remain dormant until triggered by

observing geese and ducks at his

a specific stimulus at a particular

1859
English biologist Charles

family’s summer house in Altenberg,

critical period. Fixed-action

Darwin publishes
On the

Austria. He noticed that the young

patterns, he emphasized, are not

Origin of Species
, describing

birds rapidly made a bond with

learned but genetically programed,

the theory of natural selection.

their mother after hatching, but

and as such have evolved through

1898
Lorenz’s mentor, German

could also form the same attachment

the process of natural selection. ■

biologist Oskar Heinroth,

to a foster parent if the mother was

begins his study of duck

absent. This phenomenon, which

and goose behavior, and

Lorenz called “imprinting,” had

describes the phenomenon

been observed before, but he was

of imprinting.

the first to study it systematically.

Famously, he even persuaded

AFTER

young geese and ducks to accept

1959
Experiments by the

him (by imprinting his Wellington

German psychologist Eckhard

boots) as a foster parent.

Hess show that in imprinting,

What distinguishes imprinting

what has been learned first is

from learning, Lorenz discovered, is

remembered best; whereas in

that it happens only at a specific

association learning, recent

stage in an animal’s development,

learning is remembered best.

which he called the “critical period.”

Lorenz discovered that geese

Unlike learning, it is rapid, operates

1969
John Bowlby argues that

and other birds follow and become

independently of behavior, and

the attachment of newborn

attached to the first moving object they

appears to be irreversible; imprinting

babies to their mothers is a

encounter after emerging from their

cannot be forgotten.

eggs—in this case, his boots.

genetic predisposition.

See also:
Francis Galton 28–29 ■ Ivan Pavlov 60–61 ■ Edward

Thorndike 62–65 ■ Karl Lashley 76 ■ John Bowlby 274–77

BEHAVIOR

IS SHAPED BY

POSITIVE

AND NEGATIVE

REINFORCEMENT

B.F. SKINNER (1904–1990)

80 B.F. SKINNER

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

B
urrhus Frederic Skinner,

better known as B.F.

Skinner, is possibly the

most widely known and influential

Radical behaviorism

behaviorist psychologist. He

BEFORE

was not, however, a pioneer in the

The ideal of behaviorism is

field, but developed the ideas of his

1890
William James outlines

to eliminate coercion, to

predecessors, such as Ivan Pavlov

the theories of behaviorism in

apply controls by changing

and John B. Watson, by subjecting

The Principles of Psychology
.

the environment.

theories of behaviorism to rigorous

1890s
Ivan Pavlov develops

B.F. Skinner

experimental scrutiny in order to

the concept of conditioned

arrive at his controversial stance

stimulus and response.

of “radical behaviorism.”

Skinner proved to be an ideal

1924
John B. Watson lays the

advocate of behaviorism. Not only

foundations for the modern

were his arguments based on the

behaviorist movement.

results of scrupulous scientific

methodology (so they could be

theorizing of many of the early

1930s
Zing-Yang Kuo claims

proved), but his experiments

psychologists. Works by Pavlov

that behavior is continually

tended to involve the use of novel

and Watson were his main

being modified throughout life,

contraptions that the general public

influence; he saw psychology as

and that even so-called innate

found fascinating. Skinner was an

following in the scientific tradition,

behavior is influenced by

inveterate “gadget man” and a

and anything that could not been

“experiences” as an embryo.

provocative self-publicist. But

seen, measured, and repeated in a

AFTER

behind the showman image was

rigorously controlled experiment

1950s
Joseph Wolpe pioneers

a serious scientist, whose work

was of no interest to him.

helped to finally sever psychology

Processes purely of the mind,

systematic desensitization as

from its introspective philosophical

therefore, were outside Skinner’s

part of behavior therapy.

roots and establish it as a scientific

interest and scope. In fact, he